


i could touch the snow-covered leaves (you were walking closer to me)

by orphan_account



Category: CSI: Miami
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cats, Drabble Sequence, Episode: s01e01 Golden Parachute, Episode: s02e22 Cross-Jurisdictions, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Getting Together, M/M, Music, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tim Speedle has ADHD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:47:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24745552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Eric's soulmate has been right in front of him all along.
Relationships: Eric Delko/Tim Speedle
Kudos: 14





	i could touch the snow-covered leaves (you were walking closer to me)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](https://enbyboiwonder.tumblr.com/post/181630968381/) soulmate AU. Title from [Our December](https://youtu.be/Wvd8TdK91tw) by Thriving Ivory. The song featured in xi is [Dare You to Move](https://youtu.be/UhjM8dcQsnc) by Switchfoot.
> 
> (ii is the first strict drabble (100 words exactly) that I have ever managed in my six years of writing fic. Irrelevant, but interesting.)

i

Eric looks up from his report at the sound of soft tapping: Speed's idly jiggling his pen between two fingers, the butt thwapping lightly against the page, as he reads over his own report, head propped on his fist. His sleeve has begun to slip down his forearm, and from behind its edge peeks the ends of the branches of his soulmark, gnarled and bare and lifeless. Eric's heart twists at the sight. He doesn't know whether it's kinder to hope that Speed got to meet his soulmate before they died, or that he never did.

The pen stills. Speed looks at him, then follows his line of sight and hurriedly tugs his sleeve back up, buttoning the cuff. He rests his arm flat on the table, hand splayed over the top of his report to hold it in place even as he picks up his pen and holds it motionless over the page, staring almost unblinkingly down at it.

"I'm sorry," Eric murmurs.

Speed nods, once, and that's the end of it.

ii

Dark green leaves tremble under his finger as he traces along the branches on his right arm, his skin still damp and warm from his morning shower. He thinks it's some sort of fruit tree, maybe apple or pear, but he won't know for sure until he meets his soulmate and it blooms.

As he runs his finger over the vibrant green of new growth shooting off of one branch, he can't help but wonder what Speed's used to be, what it looked like in full bloom, branches winding over his skin, stretching and unfurling to cover his entire body.

iii

Speed goes back to wearing his cuffs unbuttoned, though he's more careful now not to let his sleeves slide back.

Eric doesn't ask, and he doesn't tell.

iv

He surfaces with a triumphant cry and wades toward the wooden pier, one waterlogged murder weapon bagged and ready for processing in his hand. Speed stops his pacing and turns to him, his open dark-green button-up whipping behind him in the wind.

"Delko, you've been down there for forty-five minutes. Do you know the level of bacteria in the water? I mean, you can get all kinds of infections," Speed tells him sternly, cutting himself off as he kneels at the pier's edge in front of Eric, and then it's all business.

Eric's getting better at reading him, and behind that gruff exterior is a man who cares deeply about his friends. The knowledge that he ranks so highly among them to warrant this level of worry from Speed after only knowing him six weeks curls warm and giddy in his chest, and he can't keep the smile off his face as he watches Speed examine the dripping gun.

"I'll put it over the wire that, uh, he's not carrying that Taurus anymore."

"Do that, and take a shower," Speed says, rising to head back to the Hummer.

"Nice shoes," he calls after him, and laughs when Speed looks at him askance.

v

Hidden beneath a striped green sleeve, one dormant branch quivers.

vi

That night, he dreams of the light fragrance of a flowering fruit tree, of piercing dark eyes, of warm skin under his.

When he jerks off in the shower, he doesn't think about it, or anything else. He doesn't think about what it means.

vii

Slowing when he realizes that Speed is no longer at his side, Eric half turns to look behind him.

His friend is squatting in the grass outside his apartment building, a couple neon-yellow dandelions already in hand as he picks a small bouquet of the light-purple flowers growing in clusters across the green. Once he has about a dozen of them, he stands, raising his eyebrows at Eric, who raises his back.

"The only reason I still have a houseplant is that thing's practically immortal. Picking wildflowers lets me have a little more green in my apartment without having to worry about killing another one. _Shit_ ," he curses, and flicks at the dandelions' undersides. "Aphids really seem to like these false dandelions."

Eric leans over to see the little green insects clustered on the sepals and dotting the stems, a few smallish black ants crawling among them. "At least they're not fire ants," he says.

Speed blows an ant off his knuckle before shooting him a look out of the corner of his eye. "I don't think fire ants shepherd aphids, Delko."

He shrugs amiably.

viii

The flowers—two false dandelions, newly ant-free, and fifteen blue-eyed grass—go in a miniature glass vase which Speed sets on the coffee table, a small island of beauty amidst the clutter of his apartment.

Throughout the evening, Eric keeps finding his eyes drawn toward it, a large part of him finding the little arrangement unbearably endearing.

ix

Speed adopts Christina Colucci's cat when her mother can't take it in.

It shouldn't surprise him that his friend is such a bleeding heart, but it does, a little. Speed's apartment—Eric's half tempted to call it a pigsty, though it's not quite that bad—isn't even set up for a cat, or any other animal that doesn't live in a tank. But even before Eric offers to help, it takes surprisingly little time to get the place cat-ready.

Sometimes he forgets, with how easily they fit together, that they haven't even known each other six months.

x

"His name's Chess, short for Chestnut."

"That's cute."

He doesn't actually pout, though Eric still gets that impression anyway. "I'm not the one who named him."

Eric shrugs and grins. "Still cute."

Ignoring him, Speed continues: "He doesn't really answer to it, though. I did some reading, and cats hear better in upper registers, so they tend to respond better to names ending with an 'ee' sound. Like Chessie."

Eric's grin widens, though he doesn't get much chance to enjoy seeing Speed blush because just then, Chess knocks something over in the next room and Speed turns with a muttered imprecation to go see if he's okay.

xi

"There's a song I've been learning, if you wanna hear it."

"Sure," Eric says, interest piqued. He had no idea Speed was musically inclined.

Speed lifts Chess off his lap as he stands, setting him on the couch before turning to disappear into his bedroom. The cat immediately bounds the short distance over to Eric and flops down in his lap instead, half on his back and legs all akimbo in a manner that brings to mind the saying that cats are liquid.

"How are you comfortable?" he asks, amused, scratching under Chess' chin. The orange tail flicks.

Speed returns with an acoustic guitar in hand. He perches on the edge of the couch's armrest and takes a moment to tune it before beginning to play.

It's unlike the classic rock that Eric always hears him listening to in the Hummer and the lab, more modern and indie-sounding. When he sings, his voice is low and rough, and he lets himself be openly emotional the way he so rarely does otherwise, and it's beautiful, captivating.

_Welcome to the fallout  
_ _Welcome to resistance  
_ _The tension is here  
_ _The tension is here_   
_Between who you are and who you could be_   
_Between how it is and how it should be_

Eric absently pets Chess as he watches his friend sing, utterly enchanted, the cat purring away under his hand.

xii

Speed opens the door with a squirming cat in his arms.

"I didn't want him escaping," he says by way of explanation.

Eric leans down to let Chess climb onto his shoulder, instinctively holding up a hand to steady him. Chess pushes his head against the side of Eric's face, purring away like a mini jet engine. Idly he strokes the cat's back as he walks into the apartment, letting the swishing tail pull through his lightly curled fingers.

"Up you go," he murmurs, encouraging Chess to climb onto his cat tower.

The cat does, making a show of his disgruntled reluctance. He steps half onto the platform, standing with his back paws on Eric's shoulder for a long moment before continuing the rest of the way, dragging his tail along Eric's face and leaving him with a mouthful of fur as he goes. He leaps gracefully to the top of the tower and curls up in the cat hammock, king of all he surveys.

Spitting and wiping the bits of fur from his mouth, Eric turns to find Speed watching them both with wry amusement.

"I think I'm gonna need to get him a harness so I can take him on walks outside," he says.

"I can help you pick one out."

xiii

Speed smiles softly at him, and it's in more than just his eyes, in the quirk of his brow. You don't have to know every one of his little quirks, as Eric does, to recognize it for what it is. It's a rare enough occurrence that it sets Eric's heart tripping in his chest.

He finds himself drawn inexorably toward him, stepping close and taking his hand in his.

"Speed…"

Verdant leaves unfurl at Speed's wrist under his open-cuffed sleeve, spilling down the back of his hand toward his knuckles and curling around his fingers, clusters of tiny white flowers following suit.

Pear. Their soulmark is pear.

Speed's eyes widen, Eric's breath catches in his throat, and it's like time just stops.

xiv

"No no no no no no no," Speed says, jerking back and retreating to the other side of the room, putting the couch between them. He shakes his head fervently, as if to himself. "I can't do this again."

"Speed," Eric entreaties.

But Speed just shakes his head again and begins to pace a short path along the wall. "We're both cops. And yeah, we're CSIs, who don't get into danger as often as detectives, or undercover cops, or unis. But."

He stops; he's facing in Eric's direction, but he doesn't quite look at him. Anxiety rolls off him in waves, the slender branches painting the back of his hand trembling as if in wind.

"He was a _geology major_. A _twenty-year-old college sophomore studying geology_." A soft, humorless laugh escapes his lips, and he runs a hand through his short, dark hair.

"It should have been me. I should have been the one driving, but he—"

xv

"Hey, no, hey," Eric says quickly. He's at his friend's side in a flash, taking his head gently but firmly in his hands. Wide brown eyes snap up to lock with his. "It shouldn't have been either of you. It was an accident. It's not your fault."

Letting out a shaky breath, Speed nods fractionally under his hands, some of the tension bleeding from the set of his shoulders.

"I can't tell you that nothing like that will happen again," Eric tells him, "but I know that I, for one, have no intention of letting anything happen to either one of us if I can help it."

Then, softer: "Wouldn't you rather have this, even for a little while?"

They're close enough now that he can feel Speed's breath warm against his skin. Speed's eyes flick down to his mouth as Eric drifts slowly closer still before fluttering closed.

Eric brushes a kiss, brief and feather-light, to his lips and then rests their foreheads together, and they stay there just sharing breath for a long moment before Speed slowly opens his eyes again.

xvi

He curls his fingers around Eric's wrist and gently tugs it down to look at the back of his hand, at the mark blossoming to life under his touch. With slightly trembling fingers, he unbuttons Eric's cuff, pushing his sleeve back, and traces each branch almost reverently. Blossoms push against his fingertips, against each other, as they trail over Eric's skin, the clusters of the tiny white flowers blooming fuller in their wake, his serious eyes taking in everything.

"Tim," Eric calls softly.

He tears his gaze away from their marks. Delicate branches creep up the side of his neck, his face, leaves and petals unfurling in waves, and all that's left in his dark eyes is the same wanting that Eric couldn't let himself feel all these months. Speed rests Eric's hand against his cheek, covering it with his own and lacing their fingers together. Flowers bloom across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose like floral freckles.

"Okay."

xvii

None of the movies could have prepared him for the sense of utter rightness and belonging he'd feel when he kissed his soulmate, when he held them in his arms. He lets himself fall into it like a diver sinking below the ocean's surface, letting the waves wash over him, peaceful and calming and home; he gives himself over to Speed just as Speed gives himself over to him, fingers stealing beneath the hem of his shirt to curl around his waist.

Eric's hands fall to the open front of Speed's button-up, pushing it off his shoulders and sliding it down off his arms to slump to the carpet. He rucks up the bottom of his soft-worn Pink Floyd tee, hands roving over the warm skin of his stomach, his back, his chest, thumbing a nipple and feeling Speed gasp and shudder beneath his touch, his fingers tightening around Eric's sides and tugging him closer.

He breaks the kiss only long enough to pull first Speed's shirt and then his own, still half-buttoned, off over their heads and then toss them aside before he's on him again, letting himself be guided deeper into the apartment.

xviii

Their clothes they leave discarded in a haphazard trail from the closed bedroom door to the bed, Speed falling against it and pulling Eric down with him, lips never leaving his. Eric gentles the kiss, drawing it out long and languid and lingering, before pushing up on his forearms to stare down at Speed in wonder. The low-hanging sun streaming in through the window paints everything with a warm golden glow, and he's beautiful like this, all flushed skin and pale blooms and dark, tousled hair.

Stealing another kiss from those lips, he mouths along Speed's stubbled jaw and down the smooth column of his neck as he moves against him, marveling in all the little sounds Speed makes, at the way the blooms follow his exploring hands and mouth, the boughs curling over his entire body, flowing between them unbroken everywhere they touch as if they're a single tree. Speed's fingers dig into his shoulders, and all the flowers bloom at once as he comes, Eric's name spilling breathless from his lips, and Eric follows close behind, muffling his cry against the salt-damp curve of Speed's collar.

xix

Two fingers trace idle circles over his shoulder as they lie in each other's arms, legs tangled together. Eric blinks his eyes open to watch Speed intently watching the path his fingers take over his skin in the evening's half light. After a moment, Speed takes notice of him. He props himself up on one elbow, the hand at Eric's shoulder sliding up to cup his cheek as he gazes softly down into his eyes.

"I'm glad it's you," Speed murmurs. "Of anyone I could have gotten as a new soulmate… I'm glad it's you."

He curls his fingers around Speed's wrist, thumb rubbing over the back of his hand. "Is it too early to tell you I love you?" he asks with a helpless little smile.

Speed stills, hand trembling slightly against Eric's cheek, and blinks twice quickly; if he were one to blush, he would be doing so now. "No," he says roughly.

Speed surges forward to kiss him, Eric's hands sliding up to wrap around his shoulders, tugging him deeper into the kiss and just holding him there, holding him close as night falls outside.


End file.
